“Yes,” said I.
My answer must have carried conviction.
“Then I’ll keep you in on the game a bit longer,” he decided, talking more to himself than to me. “I wouldn’t have time now to acquaint a new man with the facts sufficiently. Come on in.”
I followed him up the stoop, through the door, and across the hall. I recognized the man at the desk. It was Sergeant Hallins, a man who had once been with Chief Garth.
“Why, hello, Grey!” cried the sergeant heartily, thus proving that the recognition was mutual.
I was distinctly pleased at his genial greeting for two reasons. For one thing, I had a very favorable impression of him from my short, former acquaintance; but, at this moment, it suited me nicely enough thus to prove to Pawlinson that I was not exactly a nonentity.
But Pawlinson, for some reason, did not appear at all to like the fact that we knew each other; though it was apparently not because Hallins failed, in turn, to recognize him.
“Sergeant Hallins,” said he, “you got my wire from New York yesterday at this office?”
For a moment Hallins looked from him to me, and back again, until finally I tumbled to the fact that this was the first time they had met each other.
“Mr. Pawlinson,” said I, by way of introduction. “You gentlemen must pardon me, for, of course, I thought that you knew each other.”